Keeping the Sabbath, Remembering the Sabbath

“Remember the Sabbath day, to make it holy.” Opening Picture a Jew on Saturday night. He finishes the blessing over the wine that marks the end of the Sabbath. He puts down the cup. And he feels that something slipped away from him, though he can’t say why. He kept the Sabbath exactly as the law asks. He did not light a fire. He did not write. He did no business and no work. For twenty-five full hours. And still there is a vague feeling that the Sabbath passed him by on the outside, not on the inside. It was as if he stood behind a sealed, protected window and watched the Sabbath from far away. The Question How can this be? If he kept every one of the laws, what was missing? The Talmud says: “’Remember’ and ‘Keep’ were spoken in a single utterance.” One verse, in the Book of Exodus, says: “Remember the Sabbath day, to make it holy.” Another verse, in the Book of Deuteronomy, says: “Keep the Sabbath day, to make it holy.” That makes two commandments, two words, two ways of saying it, and they were spoken as one. This careful reading is not just a point of grammar. It reveals two sides of the Sabbath that live together and can never be pulled apart. Explanation “Keep” is the body of the Sabbath. It is the vessel, the fence, the frame. The thirty-nine main kinds of work that we stop doing, all the smaller kinds of work that come from them, and every law that was set down for all generations belong to “Keep.” Together they build a protected space, a place where a person can breathe. This is the side of “turn away from bad,” which means stepping back from work and guarding the borders of holiness. But “Remember” is the soul of the Sabbath. “Remember” is awareness. It is a state inside you, a real rest and a real delight. Rashi, the classic Bible commentator, comments on the verse in Exodus. He explains that “Remember” is a word about thought: a person should set his heart on the Sabbath even before it comes. So it is not only about keeping. It is also about remembering, about carrying the Sabbath inside yourself. You can carry out “Keep” in a technically perfect way and still stand outside the Sabbath for all twenty-five of its hours. “Keep” without “Remember” is an empty vessel. It is a body without a soul. Going Deeper The Zohar, the classic book of Jewish mysticism, speaks of an “extra soul” that comes to a person on the Sabbath. This is not some abstract idea. It is added vitality, a wider mind, an open heart, and you feel it when you truly enter the Sabbath. It happens when you forget, for a moment, the to-do lists of the coming days. It happens when you sit down at the Sabbath meal and feel that you are really there. That is “Remember.” That is the holiness of the Sabbath coming down and shining from within. The Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, stresses that the inner side of serving Hashem, through reflection and awareness, is itself real service. What counts is not only “What did I do?” It is also “Where was I?” “Remember” asks a person to be present, in body and in soul, inside the holiness of the day. The New Insight: The Real Test But there is something deeper here, and it is the heart of the matter. The real question is not only “Did you enter the Sabbath?” The real question is “Did the Sabbath leave with you after the closing blessing?” The Talmud says that Hashem blessed the Sabbath day, and that this blessing keeps flowing and shining into all the days of the week. In other words, the Sabbath is not an “island” of holiness that comes and goes. It is a source, a place a person draws strength from for the six days of work. Likkutei Torah, a classic book of Hasidic teachings, stresses that the whole purpose of our inner work on the Sabbath is to draw it onward, to carry the light of holiness into the ordinary days. Suppose the Sabbath ends with the words “Who separates between the holy and the ordinary,” and then it is forgotten at once. That is a sign that “Remember” was not fully there. But suppose a person reaches the middle of the week and still feels a breath of the Sabbath that has passed. Suppose something in him has not been swallowed up by the busy day. That is a sign that the Sabbath truly was inside him, and not only around him.